special envoy to afghanistan. his new book is called the wars of afghanistan. please welcome to the problem peter tomsen. have a seat. >> thank you. >> jon: my first question to you is simply this. really? (laughter) really? >> it's pretty big. >> jon: really? >> yeah (laughter) don't drop it on your toe. >> jon: let me ask you this, volume 2, what period of wars does this cover and how much of the amazon is now gone? (laughter) what period of wars are we dealing with her. >> actually it's six, two in the 19th century, one in the early 20th century, and the rest with the soviet invasion and afterwards. >> jon: starting in '79. >> right. >> jon: what is so alluringly invadable about-- (laughter) >> jon: afghanistan because everyone seems to want to do it they don't have oil. they don't appear to have mineral wealth, although i think they've recently discovered that. they appear to just have a tightly knit group of tribes who don't care for being invaded. >> exactly. and in our case we called it an intervention. some call it an invasion. the big, the most importa